Aircraft Carrier Admiral Kuznetsov: News #2

PapaDragon wrote:

SeigSoloyvov wrote:...........
The loss of that floating dry dock means they cannot easily service a large ship now, the article states yes they do have alternatives for other large surface ships but those alternatives will be a lot more time consuming than normal at this point meaning they will be even SLOWER than normal for a while.

Only important question is how does this affect submarine maintenance and construction?

Nothing much will change with surface fleet. Ship classes that Russia can produce now (up to frigate maybe, corvette more likely) will not be affected and can be serviced with any other dry-dock.

This dry-dock here that they managed to sink is only crucial for legacy white elephants that do not contribute to defense anyway and are sucking up resources.

But if submarines are affected than it's nothing short of total disaster.  So are they?

If they had to raise a big submarine out of the water yes it will.

Also frigates are affected Russia does not have tons of dry docks space to spare, if you move a ship into the land-based dry docks you taking up construction time and slots.

Floating dry docks are used to solve this problem. They are also used to safely guide a ship into a land-based dry dock otherwise you have a huge risk of causing hull damage to the ships this includes subs.

hoom wrote:

Stop trying to act like this issue isn't one it is a really big issue.

I don't think anyone is behaving like its no big deal, its a giant PR disaster & going to be a big PITA logistically but its also not going to cause the collapse of the whole fleet.

Question is how to go about getting it sorted.

It will cause some areas of the fleet to collapse without a maintenance facility which is what the PD-50 was used for it played a very important role in managing the fleet.

Hole wrote:It is a floating dry dock. For subs. But Zvezda is capable of building a replacement for your sacred PD-50, the ornerstone of the russian Navy without all the fleets will have no other joice but to be disbanned.

The guys who own the shipyard have said that won't happen anytime soon, soooo keep talking~ Cause the owners themselves have said this and PRETTTTTTTY sure the guys who own the shipyard would know better then you.

so I'll take their word over yours thanx.

hoom wrote:Its not like PD-50 is the only floating dock in the North though.
I counted at least 10 decent size ones via Google Earth & several smaller.

Question is how close to capacity those are working?
If they're already pretty close to capacity its a big issue but if there is a bunch of spare capacity there may be little/no impact other than K & PtG.

Assuming you did see 10 no offense its really hard to tell a floating dock from other things via google earth which isn't reliable at all.

They are way to small also. There are big reasons why the United Shipbuilding corp is admitting this is a disaster of massive scale. Straight from the guys who make warships for Russia and handle the fleet in that way. Seems the more this is explained the more people do not want to accept the reality and wish to gloss over it not wanting to admit how big of a fudge this has become.

PapaDragon wrote:
Good news luckily (not for Kuznetzov though)

Russia finds alternative to sunken floating dock for naval ships

http://tass.com/defense/1029654

Docking versions serving as an alternative to the sunken floating dock in Murmansk in northwest Russia have been found for all the Russian Navy’s ships, Head of the United Ship-Building Corporation Alexei Rakhmanov said on Wednesday.

"We have alternatives actually for all the ships except for [the aircraft carrier] Admiral Kuznetsov. Our enterprises are in operation, [including] the Nerpa [Ship Repair Factory]. After all, we can perform certain docking works in Severodvinsk, not far from Murmansk. We don’t feel any special problems in this regard," the chief executive said..............

They can the problem is they slow down other progress because now they have to use those facilities for dual purpose they never intended so they are now expecting those places to do double the work which is going to cause time delays.

also he said "Certain" meaning very specifics things they can do but others they cannot in that area

hoom wrote:

Assuming you did see 10 no offense its really hard to tell a floating dock from other things via google earth which isn't reliable at all.

Are you serious?  

They are way to small also.

Too small for K & PtG no question but there are a bunch of other, smaller ships in the fleet.

On google earth being unreliable? yes because it's not.

GarryB wrote:But the whining butt hurt is...

They have another large floating dock with the Pacific fleet... and worst case scenario they could always get someone else to make a couple of them for them... Sweden and Finland have made them for them in the past, but certainly China or South Korea could easily make them some.

They already use cranes made in China anyway.

not at the size of PD-50

PapaDragon wrote:

hoom wrote:

On google earth being unreliable? yes because it's not.

Its plenty reliable to tell the difference between a floating dock and anything else since nothing else looks anything like a floating dock

On the bright side PR wise NATO now has their own major embarrassment...

How the hell did they do this?


That being said, someone else's f***ups do not excuse Russia's. Problem did not go away.  

Well there is no excuse for that, I don't even know how they managed that one

and yes to that second part

How deep is PD-50 sunk? I assume its not super deep, so I am wondering why its such a huge task to refloat it. Can they not just pump compressed air into the ballasts in a coordinated manner and float it that way? Barring that, use a bunch of flotation bags to pull flush with the surface, then pump out the tanks? Was this incompetence or sabotage?